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The Headlines
A STICKY SITUATION. Glue-wielding climate activists have hit another art museum, this time in Italy, the Associated Press reports. After a string of high-profile incidents in the United Kingdom in recent weeks that have involved protesters gluing themselves to the frames of famed artworks, hoping to draw attention to global warming, a man and woman in Florence hit the Uffizi. Their target: Sandro Botticelli’s Spring (ca. 1485), which is protected by glass, so there was no damage to the artwork. According to the Guardian, the two were from the Ultima Generazione (Last Generation) group, which said in a statement, “Is it possible to see a spring as beautiful as this today? Fires, food crises and drought make it increasingly difficult.” The activists were reportedly ordered to stay out of Florence for three years.
INTERVIEW SUBJECTS. Designer and art dealer Axel Vervoordt is in Tatler, offering this advice: “It’s important to be surrounded by what is real and honest, instead of fake things.” The late, great fashion designer Stephen Sprouse is the subject of a new exhibition at the Indianapolis Museum of Art, and rock superstar Debbie Harry told the New York Times of her old friend and roommate: “One of my favorite things to do was just to sit and watch Steve sit down and casually doodle on a piece of paper.” And Tom Sachs, whose work often takes the form of faux space adventures, told the Times, “You don’t go to other worlds because you’ve ruined this one and you’re looking for a new home. You go to other worlds so you can better understand your resources here.”
The Digest
Sotheby’s will hold its first auction in Singapore in 15 years, amid growing demand from the city state and the surrounding region, according to the house. The sale of modern and contemporary art is on the calendar for August 28. [Bloomberg]
Pace Gallery has added to its roster the abstract painter Virginia Jaramillo, who “will become one of the few U.S.-born Latina artists to be represented by a mega-gallery,” Maximilíano Durón reports. Pace will show her work at Frieze Seoul in September and do a solo show at its L.A. space next May. [ARTnews]
The University for the Creative Arts in England awarded an honorary degree to Banksy, who unsurprisingly did not show up to accept it. A student at the ceremony stole the certificate, and the school has apparently not asked for it to be returned. It will be a “story for the grandkids,” he said. [Independent and Newsweek]
Carleton Varney, an artist who became a revered interior designer known as Mr. Color, for his exuberant, vibrant creations, died at 85. Among his most notable projects was the Sheraton in Honolulu’s Waikiki area, which involved commissioned paintings from Margaret Keane, who died last month. [The New York Times]
Pulitzer Prize–winning art critic Christopher Knight has a list of “17 works of art you need to see in Los Angeles County,” from the Watts Towers of Sabato Rodia to the Virgin and Child (ca. 1460) of Rogier van der Weyden at the Huntington Library. [Los Angeles Times]
Speaking of space projects, SpaceX founder Elon Musk allegedly had a short-lived affair with the wife of Google cofounder Sergey Brin, entrepreneur and lawyer Nicole Shanahan, which involved a meeting during Art Basel Miami Beach. None of them has commented. [The Wall Street Journal]
The Kicker
APPETIZING ART. The New York Times has a thrilling, hunger-inducing photo essay on the lively signs that adorn food stalls in Mexico City—except in the Cuauhtémoc borough, whose local mayor has decreed that they must be covered up. Natalie Kitroeff writes that one of the sign makers, Martín Hernández , noted that some “feature animals cheerfully sacrificing themselves for someone else’s meal.” Said Hernández: “It could be a shrimp that looks very elegant, but at the same time mischievous, inviting people to eat seafood.” This is a must-click. Enjoy. [NYT]
